I would offer special Christmas Greetings to all those who are reading this Bulletin but were unable to celebrate this feast with me because of health or miles separating us. Please know that you are remembered. May Almighty God bless you abundantly with peace, happiness and good health. Christ IS Born! Glorify Him!
The only other time of the year that our Church has more religious feasts and observances is Great and Holy Week and Bright Week. While there were only two weekends where there were special commemorations (i.e., weekends of the Forefather and Holy Ancestors) there are a host of other feasts that follow Christmas. They are:
(1) Synaxis of the Mother of God;
(2) Stephen, the first martyr;
(3) Weekend After Christmas;
(4) Circumcision of Our Lord – New Year’s Day;
(5) Weekend Before Theophany;
(6) Theophany; and
(7) Weekend After Theophany.
You are encouraged to make note of these days and to observe them in a special manner since we are still limited in the number of communal worship services we can have at a reasonable time.
Then immediately after all of these observances, the six-week sequence of special weekends in preparation for the Great Fast begin (January 17-18). That is the weekend of Zacchaeus. The Great Fast begins on Monday, February 16th. Great and Holy Week begins on March 29th with Willow Weekend and Easter falls on weekend of April 4-5. Easter is almost as early as it can be (i.e., March 22nd).
While we are still a new spiritual community without a worship space of our own, each of us must work, in a different way, to create a true religious life. One way to do this is by making sure that our religious calendar is put in a prominent place where we can follow the life of the Church. This is our particular challenge as a community without a worship space. This does not have to hinder our religious life. It is all a matter of how we go about it.
Let us truly declare that God IS With Us!
On this day, O Heavenly Father, I declare with a loud voice the prayer of my Church and say: Your nativity, O Christ our God, has shed the light of knowledge upon the world. Through it, those who had been star-worshipers learned through a star to worship You, O Sun of Justice, and to recognize in You the One who rises and who comes from on high. O Lord, glory to You. I pray, O Father, that on this day on which I celebrate Your birth as man, that I may come to the knowledge of the truth and that my faith might be strengthened to truly dare to believe that You came to help me lead my life. Help me to truly know that You love me and trust that my misdeeds will not cause You to hold Your love from me. I offer You thanks for Your great love and I offer You, Who I call Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all glory honor and worship not only now but forever and ever. Amen.
When the Lord Jesus was born of the Virgin, the whole creation lit up. Behold: shepherds keep watch, the Magi adore, angels sing hymns of praise and Herod trembles for the Savior of our souls has appeared in the flesh.
My dearest brothers and sisters in Christ,
Christ IS Born – З Різдвом Христовим
I would, on this glorious feast of the birth of Our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, extend my sincerest best wishes and greetings to all who read this Bulletin. It is my priestly prayer that each of you may truly experience the peace and joy of this feast. May each of you also experience, in some special way, the joy which this feast is meant to bring – a joy which only faith can make real because it tells us that God IS With Us.
It is also my hope that each of you may also be filled with the knowledge that God came into our world in the Person of Jesus, the Christ, so that we might know that we are loved and that He revealed by his incarnation that He truly understands human life. Because of His incarnation, we no longer have to ever feel that we are making life’s journey alone. Our God not only understands the vicissitudes of life’s journey but has experienced them.
As the man Jesus, God knows the joys and sorrows of life! He is familiar with life’s struggles and successes. He is acquainted with friendship and betrayal. He understands the challenges of human life. He realizes the power of forgiveness and gratitude. He grasps the horror of hatred and cruelty. He appreciates loneliness and helplessness.
While our God knows all the challenges and struggles that we must face, He proved humankind’s ability to love instead of hate, to endure instead of give up, to hope instead of despair and to be content instead of anxious. He proved humankind’s ability to trust in God.
One of the wonderful things about this feast is that it expresses God’s overwhelming love for us, His children. Think about it. He voluntarily took on human flesh so that we would never have to feel that we are alone on life’s journey. He showed us how to live in order to truly comprehend the magnificence and beauty of human life.
May your Christmas be filled with an abundance of joy, happiness, peace and love. May your faith be strengthened so that you can truly declare from the bottom of your heart: GOD IS WITH US!
Merry Christmas, Fr. Wayne
Almighty Father, our forty-day time of preparation as come to an end. It is now time for our celebration of that most wondrous event, Your coming into our world and becoming incarnate as a human. I stand in awe before the wonder of Your great love. I would dare to think that You, in Your great love for Your creation, decided from all eternity that You would take on human nature in order to reveal to humankind how to live in order to fulfill its primary purpose, namely union with You. I pray again with my Church: At that time, since Mary was of the house of David, she registered with the venerable Joseph in Bethlehem. She was with child, having conceived virginally. Her time was come and they could find no room in the inn, but the cave seemed a joyful palace for the Queen. Christ is born to renew the likeness that had been lost of old. I ask You, Almighty God, to make room within my heart and life for Your presence. I ask this of You, Father, Son and Holy Spirit now and forever. Amen.
Most Reverend Metropolitans, Archbishops and Bishops,
Very Reverend and Reverend Fathers, Venerable Religious and Monastics,
Beloved Brothers and Sisters, in Ukraine and throughout the world
Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy
that will be for all the people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David
a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.
(Luke 2:10-11)
Christ is Born!
With these angelic words from heaven, Christ’s Church announces news of salvation. Today for us a Saviour has been born: the Lord descended to earth, appearing in a human body in the city of Bethlehem. This day heaven and earth rejoices, the entire human race rejoices in the knowledge that our Creator has not abandoned His creation, but He came to accept its fate as His own. He became man in order to share our human life: our pains and joys, our fears and insecurities. The Lord became one of us, reveals Himself as our Saviour and Redeemer.
On the feast of Christ’s Nativity, we rejoice in knowing that never again will we feel alone or abandoned. We celebrate that God is with us, that He loves us, and we see God’s love incarnate in the newborn Christ Child, who gently rests in a hay-filled manger. The Mystery of the Birth of our Saviour reveals to us how God’s greatness opens up to us through human frailty, how the humanly small and insignificant can become great in God!
The Holy Gospel tells us that the Lord of the Universe was born in a family of refugees. At first, by Caesar’s decree, and then because of the blood-thirst of King Herod, the Most Holy Family was forced to abandon their home and seek refuge among strangers. Yes, our God chose to be born as a refugee without home! In these strange circumstances of our Saviour’s birth, in addition to the wise men from the East, only those who were not ashamed to be with the needy, with exiles and the persecuted were granted the privilege to approach the Divine Babe. By opening to Him the doors of their hearts, of their home, by recognizing the sign of salvation in the Lord, who was born in a cave, these people were filled with divine joy in the midst of the darkness of night. For the Christmas mystery is found in the ability to enter into God’s presence and encounter the newborn Christ by being able to be close: to be close to those who are weak and without protection, who suffer from cold and the lack of bare necessities.
Ukraine has undergone a strange year in which everything was bigger than life: hope and despair, assuredness and disappointment, gains and losses. But also great was the fear, that Darkness could sense, seeing that our breakthrough towards Light could emerge victorious. And Darkness sent upon us pain and bloodshed, injury and even death, so that the people might recoil in the face of such suffering and return to the same path of silent and uncontested submission.
There is no Ukrainian who did not take part in this test of Divine Providence, which still continues. In some ways today all of us find ourselves in the zone of risk, the zone of the Anti-terrorist operation. Similar to the shepherds, who on the place where they led their flock to pasture heard the song of angels in heaven and received the news of the birth of a Saviour, so too, each one of us, has his or her place of spiritual vigil, his “guard post,” where we all must fulfil our Christian and civic mission. And even if some have become tired and would prefer to avoid this choice, they nonetheless find the strength for the task. Only passivity plays into the hands of evil.
This year our journey to Christmas led us along the path of the wounded and exiled. Our Church literally became a field hospital, set up in order to give refuge to the persecuted and to heal the wounds of the injured. But even after the Maidan, the Church did not cease to function as a hospital, for that is her vocation. Pope Francis reminds us of this: “I see the Church as a field hospital after battle.”
None of us were ready for war, and yet it continues, uninvited – it breaks into virtually every Ukrainian home, especially in the Eastern territories of our Land. There is a danger that the boundary of human sensitivity to the pain and suffering of one’s neighbour will diminish. Christians know that apathy kills no less than “Hrad” missile launchers. The task before the state is to wisely resolve the problem of aid to those citizens who have suffered. While the task before every Christian is to be close, to accompany those who are in dire need. This Christian unity with those in need, which we call solidarity, is what makes us strong. In it are revealed and through it we receive the power of the incarnate God, the action of the Saviour, who was born in order to make us free and undefeatable in God.
In the time of Christmas each one of us looks at the sky in the hope of seeing the light of the star of Bethlehem. For the New Year promises not to be easier or our choice to be simpler. Our greatest task for 2015 is to embark on the path of development of civilisation and a life of dignity. For this we must clothe ourselves in a godly, not worldly manner, by renouncing all unworthy compromises with the evil one. This applies to each one of us – even to the one who considers himself or herself as the least in this world. The task of directing one’s life towards good also makes great civil sense, for when every Ukrainian man and woman will change, the country will also change. Together we must adorn ourselves with effective government structures, which will finally cease to be structures of sin. For government can be a blessing, if it becomes service.
Both tasks are impossible to fulfil if we don’t experience doubt, don’t make mistakes, don’t step back. Let us not carry the pride of perfection, but rather let us admit before God our weaknesses and ask in humility: O God, help me in my weakness! A humble person does not lose faith in his strength, for, in the words of Ivan Franko, one “feels on his shoulder the hand of the Lord.” Therefore, let us remember that despair, disappointment, the impulsive desire to rid ourselves of those, who have not fulfilled our expectations these are the instruments, which allow Darkness to most effectively reacquire its lost positions. Let us not help it undermine our chances for success. Failing to always do everything is not the problem. Allowing our failures to make us lose heart is!
We have before us one task, about which we should never have any doubt. That task is to pray. The Maidan was victorious because people prayer, fervently and sincerely. Today let us not allow for a certain “being used to” war to weaken the intensity of our prayers. Let us direct all the strength of our soul, so that in our families and communities prayers for Ukraine continue to be raised unceasingly, so that our beloved land might be filled with the light of faith, as was the poor cave of Bethlehem, that our hearts might be purified, that a new life may be born. And then, having received God’s blessings, we will be the happiest people on earth.
In the dark night of insecurity and fear, let our ancient koliada dispel all sadness and every worry… With this Christmas greeting I seek to visit each home, filled with good people, who receive the newborn God and Saviour and rejoice with feast of Christ’s Nativity!
Today we extend our Christmas greetings to our soldiers, who celebrate this great feast in cold frontline trenches and shelters, with their chests forward, ready to defend their nation. With festive wishes we greet all those who lost their home and miss the warmth of their families, that all may be good and well in their lives.
With the song of angels announcing peace on earth and glory in the highest let us today visit those, who mourn the loss of family and friends, who suffer from their battle wounds, who are in captivity or imprisoned. As in this Christmas night joy overcomes sorrow and heavenly light – darkness, so in his Nativity let our Saviour fill us with the strength of his victory, of good over evil, of truth over untruth, and may a heavenly peace overcome war.
To all our faithful in Ukraine and throughout the world I send you my deepest heartfelt wishes for a merry Christmas, a tasty kutia, and a resounding koliada.
Christ is born! Glorify Him!
+ SVIATOSLAV
Given in Kyiv
at the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ,
on the Feast of the St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Myra in Lycia
on the 19th (6th) of December, 2014 A.D.
Almighty God, as I come ever closer to the celebration of Your birth, I beg you to grant me the insight to truly understand why You became a human. I know that my Church tells me that Your birth revealed that human life is a sharing in Divine Life. I desire to truly believe this, help my hesitant belief. I am hesitant to believe in this wondrous truth because of my own weaknesses and failings. This truth seems too absolutely wonderful and beyond my imagination. Although I desire it to be true, I fear that, in some way, I am not worthy of such great love. Help my lack of trust. I know that You revealed through Jesus Your great love for all humans. Help me to not only be worthy of Your love but also to feel worthy. I ask this of You Who I call Father, Son and Holy Spirit not only now but forever and ever. Amen.
O Heavenly Father, I again join my voice with the Church and offer this prayer of preparation for the feast of Your birth and I say: Today the Virgin is on her way to the cave where she will give birth in a manner beyond understanding to the Word Who is, in all eternity. Rejoice, therefore, universe, when you hear it heralded: with the angels and the shepherds, glorify Him Who chose to be seen as a new-born Babe, while remaining God in all eternity. Help me, O Lord, to truly understand this great mystery! Help me to also know that this event also reveals Your presence within humanity. I ask this of You Who I call Father, Son and Holy Spirit not only now but forever and ever. Amen.
In the last issue I began to share the thoughts of the Cappadocian Fathers. This fundamental position has two important implications. First, there is no absolute symmetry between divinity and humanity in Christ because the unique hypostasis is only divine and because the human will follows the divine. It is precisely a “symmetrical” Christology which was rejected as Nestorian in Ephesus (431). You may recall that Nestorianism held that Christ had two loosely-united natures, divine and human. A brief definition of Nestorian Christology can be given as: “Jesus Christ, who is not identical with the Son but personally united with the Son, who lives in him, is one hypostasis and one nature: human.” The “asymmetry” of Eastern Christology reflects an idea which Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria stressed so strongly: only God can save, while humanity can only cooperate with the saving acts and will of God. However, in the patristic concept of man, theocentricity is a natural character of humanity; thus asymmetry does not prevent the fact that Christ was fully and “actively” man. It is natural for man to be God-centered. That is how he was created. So with Jesus as a man, He was God-centered in His human nature and His divine personality was the element that brought union between His divine and human natures.
Second, the human nature of Christ is not personalized into a separate human hypostasis, which means that the concept of hypostasis is not an expression of natural existence, either in God or in man, but it designates personal existence. Post Chalcedonian Christology postulates that Christ was fully man and so that He was a human individual, but it rejects the Nestorian view that He was a human hypostasis, or person. A fully human individual life was en-hypostasized in the hypostasis of the Logos, without losing any of its human characteristics. The theory, associated with the name of Apollinaris of Laodicea, and according to which the Logos, in Jesus, had taken the place of the human soul, was systematically rejected by Byzantine theologians since it implied that the humanity of Christ was not complete. Cyril’s celebrated formula – wrongly attributed to Athanasius and, in fact uttered by Apollinaris – one nature incarnate of God the Word was accepted only in a Chalcedonian context. Divine nature and human nature could never merge, or be confused, or become complementary to each other, but, in Christ, they were united in the single divine hypostasis of the Logos: the divine model matched the human image.
Hopefully this is beginning to make more sense. It is critical that we maintain that Christ had two natures and only one personality. Christ IS the God-Man.
Not all the struggles and obstacles that we have to face on our life’s journey of becoming spiritual people are internal. The culture in which we live is constantly pointing in different directions and trying to tear up the road we want to follow. It puts up signs all along the way: This is all there is! There ain’t no more! Get it all now while you can! You have a right to comfort and prosperity! Live for today! We are so deeply rooted in our culture that we have a difficult time seeing the unspoken assumptions on which this culture rests. We take for granted a consumer society and a lifestyle based on the acquisition of and pleasurable use of material things. Plus we see so many other around us living this way.
This is especially intense, I believe, at Christmas when everything in our society is geared up to buying the latest gadget. The primary struggles with our lifestyle revolve around our use of money and time. Each day we face the challenge of how we are to use the resources we have. Very easily these can become the center of our attention and the goal of our lives, rather than the means by which we make a contribution to future generations and move to a fuller, more comprehensive, richer relationship with God and with one another.
The resources we have to help us in this struggle are the Scriptures, the teachings of the Church and, in a very special way, the lives of the saints. In spite of all the pious writings which make the great Christians of the past seem anemic, they were strong people, people who stood against the prevailing culture of the day.
Indeed life’s journey can be a struggle. It is in dealing with these struggles that we spiritually grow.